Basic concepts of Zoho Analytics
Zoho Analytics On-Premise is an installable reporting and business intelligence service that helps you to easily analyze your business data and create insightful reports & dashboards for informed decision-making.
This guide will help you to learn the concepts specific to Zoho Analytics. The following topics will be discussed in this guide.
The below image captures how the different entities are organized and how the various concepts in Zoho Analytics are connected to each other. On further reading, this document will give you a clarity on the same.
Workspaces
All information in Zoho Analytics is organized into logical entities called Workspaces. A workspace is a logical grouping of data sets (stored in entities called Tables) and all the reports & dashboards created over this dataset. The workspace also contains structural information on how the entities are related to each other. It also offers methods to create metrics on the data for further analysis.
You can have one or more workspace s in your account which can be owned by you or shared with you by other users.
Click here to learn more about workspaces and how to manage them.
Tables
Tables contain the actual dataset that needs to be analyzed. A workspace contains a collection of tables. A table is similar to a spreadsheet and consists of columns and actual data rows.
Each column has a name and a type (data type) associated with it. A workspace typically contains one or more tables with logically related datasets. For example, a sales workspace might contain Products, Sales, and Purchases tables.
If you wish to define a logical relationship between two different datasets, you can easily do so by creating a lookup (Refer to Relating tables using Lookup columns for more information). Once this is done you can create any type of report, using the columns from the tables.
Click here to learn more about working with tables.
- Query table is a feature that enables you to create specific data views for easy reporting and analysis.
- You can create query tables for use cases like batching dataset together (union), transform data, apply SQL query functions etc.
- You can create query tables using the standard SQL queries.
- Zoho Analytics currently supports SQL queries written in Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, and ANSI SQL dialects.
Formulas
Formulas are calculations that help you derive key business metrics that can be used in reporting and analysis. Zoho Analytics provides a powerful formula engine to create any type of calculations required to assist in creating the required reports.
Zoho Analytics supports different types of formulas:
- Custom Formula Columns: These are formula types that will help you add a new column to your data table. The values are derived based on the calculation/formula defined. The output of the formula adds a new column in the table.
- Aggregate Formulas: These formula types use aggregate functions (SUM, AVG.. etc.) in the calculation. These are typically used to derive business metrics. The result of Aggregate Formulas will not be added as another column in the base table, but they can be used while creating reports.
Click here to learn about Formulas in Zoho Analytics.
Reports
Zoho Analytics offers a wide variety of reporting options such as Charts, Pivot Tables, Summary Views, and Tabular Views. This enables you to easily analyze your data and derive great insights. Creating reports is made easy using the intuitive drag and drop interface of Zoho Analytics.
A report can be created by joining one or more tables.
The following types of reports are supported in Zoho Analytics:
- Chart is a visual representation of data which allows you to effectively analyze and interpret data. Zoho Analytics supports over 25+ chart types such as Area, Line, Bar, Stacked, Pie, Scatter, Combination, Funnel, Web, Bubble etc.
- Pivot Table (also known as matrix view) allows you to dynamically rearrange, group, and summarize data for easy analysis of large sets of data. You can filter, sort, customize the appearance and content of your Pivot Table just the way you want it by using the wide range of options provided by Zoho Analytics.
- Tabular View helps you to display the raw data in a simple tabular format. Using this view, you can create a spreadsheet-like report that contains all of your data. You can see your raw data along with summaries and grouping.
- Summary View enables you to view your summarized data in tabular formats. This report is extremely useful when you need to analyze huge amount of data with logical grouping and appropriate summarizations in a visually intuitive manner.
Dashboards
A Dashboard is an effective way of organizing reports into a single page for a quick insight into the Key Metrics at a glance. Zoho Analytics provides a simple and intuitive drag and drop interface for creating dashboards in minutes. You can easily create a visually rich and interactive dashboard by adding reports, widgets, user filters, and rich-formatted text in single or double column layout. You can have any number of reports in a dashboard.
Zoho Analytics also offers a widget-based model for creating single number charts (headline charts) within dashboards. These are called KPI Widgets. This is feature highlights any key metric in a dashboard for easy comprehension. The key metric can also be accompanied with associated comparison indicators to highlight the trend.
Theme and Tab customization
Zoho Analytics offers theme and tab customization. You can change the look and feel of the application with a simple click.
To change your theme:
- Click on your account image from the top-right corner.
- Select any one of the themes under the Theme section.
- The selected theme will be applied at once.
- You can change your theme anytime from the account settings.